Elasticsearch privilege escalation
A flaw was discovered in Elasticsearch 7.17.0’s upgrade assistant, in which upgrading from version 6.x to 7.x would disable the in-built protections on the security index, allowing authenticated users with “*” index permissions access to this index. Users running a cluster on an affected version that had previously been upgraded from 6.x, should upgrade to 7.17.1. Users that are planning to upgrade from 6.x should not perform an upgrade from 6.x to versions 7.16 through 7.17.0 and should use 7.17.1+ for upgrades from 6.x.
Affected software
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| Platform | Package | Vulnerable versions | Fixed in |
|---|---|---|---|
| Java / Kotlin (Maven) | org.elasticsearch:elasticsearch | >= 7.16.0, < 7.17.1 | 7.17.1 |
References
- CVSS vector
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:L/I:N/A:N- Weakness (CWE)
CWE-269- Platform
- Java / Kotlin (Maven)
- Package
org.elasticsearch:elasticsearch- Disclosed
- 04.03.2022
- Updated
- 11.10.2026 11:22
Sources and licenses
OSV / GitHub Advisory Database - GHSA-pgq6-ccqj-hpqr - CC BY 4.0
Vulnerability history: org.elasticsearch:elasticsearch
All published vulnerabilities of this package (Java / Kotlin (Maven)), newest first. Shows whether this is a one-off slip or a package that needs watching.
- Total entries
- 40
- First → latest
- 03.2021 05.2025
- Without a fix
- 0
- Exploited in attacks
- 2
Severity breakdown
- High 8
- Medium 31
- Low 1
Disclosures per year
- 2021: 7
- 2022: 19
- 2023: 4
- 2024: 7
- 2025: 3
- 2026: 0
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Elasticsearch privilege escalation this entry
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